


No War Won

by LazyAdmiral



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair-critical, Brosca/Leske (mentioned), F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Resentment, Zevran/Warden (mentioned), very vague hints of past sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyAdmiral/pseuds/LazyAdmiral
Summary: It grows after that, grain after grain in an hourglass, a scream that builds in her throat but she can’t let out. It has to fall apart eventually, and when it does it’s catastrophic.





	No War Won

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I threw together during my first playthrough of Origins with my Warden Ylva Brosca. Most of her playthrough was about her trying to be something better than she was back in Orzammar and she's ironically enough one of the most forgiving of my Wardens when it comes to difficult choices. But when it came to Alistair, as much as I like him, I did feel my Warden would likely have some resentment of him that's built up over time and it all came to a head during the Landsmeet, where she's doing what she believes is the right thing. Most of what I've seen in regards to response to Alistair leaving if you recruit Loghain are usually from the perspective of a romanced Warden, and I really wanted to explore how a Warden who became friends with Alistair might react instead. So enjoy!

When Alistair brushes off the burden of responsibility, curling in on himself in grief and anger and loss, it rubs. She’s scared too and hopelessly in over her head. She knows almost nothing about being a Warden beyond what Duncan had managed to impart before Ostagar, and _Stone_ if it doesn’t ache to think of him out there, cold and broken, being picked over by darkspawn and whatever else is prowling the empty battlefield. She remembers the first time they spoke and she can’t think of anyone else other than Rica and maybe Leske who talked to her and looked at her like she might be worth something more than another muscle to hold a knife.

It hurts, too, when he only waits until _after_ she wakes, breathing hard and covered in cold sweat, to tell her about the nightmares of the Archdemon. Of the short, painful life that now awaits her as a Warden. Of how even if she survives the Blight and her battles, she’ll eventually face her end alone in the dark with the song of the taint reverberating through her skull.

But you don’t survive by complaining or whining about your lot; you buck up, shoulder your load, and get on with it. If Alistair tends to forget there are things she doesn’t know or prefers to follow half a step behind, that’s okay. He’s sweet and kind, if a little naive, and she’s not used to someone being nice to her without wanting something in return. In a fight, he has her back without fail and more than once he’s taken a hit that should have landed on her. In actions rather than words, he’s told her she can trust him and to her everlasting surprise, she does.

He’s a steady weight at her back as they face the impossible task of bringing order to the fallen Circle of Magi, his Templar training an unexpected boon against demons and abominations. They emerge triumphant with the survivors, and she feels strong again for the first time since they left Flemeth’s hut.

When he drops the bombshell that he’s old King Maric’s bastard son and the most likely heir to the throne of Ferelden, it feels like the ground drops out from under her. The inside of her cheek is bloody from having to bite it and not scream at him as he shrugs and huffs and sighs through the confession. She can understand why it bothers him, understand why he would rather pretend but the country is in chaos and there’s no room now for make-believe. Getting dragged into this war without knowing the whole truth feels like she’s been gambling without looking at her cards, like Beraht sending her on a job with only half the intel. It’s hard not to feel betrayed and wonder if Loghain might have been quite so set on seeing them dead if there wasn’t a throne at stake.

But he looks at her, hopeful and pleading, and damn it she forces a small smile and lets it go, ‘no harm done’. And he looks so relieved, she convinces herself she means it.

Redcliffe is a mess. For the first time, he argues with her – first about the blood mage, Jowan, when she gives him the second chance to redeem himself, and then when she considers Jowan’s solution to ridding Conor of the demon. They’re short on time – who knows how long Redcliffe has before the demon decides it wants more chaos and destruction – and Jowan’s offer of blood magic is the most expedient way to solve the problem without killing the boy. She only relents in the end because Alistair sounds so… disappointed, so let down that she’d even think about it that she manages to reason that the extra time to reach the Circle and ask for their help can’t hurt too much, can it?

That disappointment rankles her, lingers like an echo in her skull as she sets off for Orzammar. She doesn’t bring Alistair and mentions little of the trip when they regroup. She’s never had anyone think highly of her before, never had anyone expect anything much of her, and suddenly it’s more important than anything else that she doesn’t lose the respect of the first real friend she’s made on the surface. What could he possibly think when he finds out that back home she’s the lowest of the low, a dirty brand unfit for even the most menial labour, that as far as the records of her people are concerned, she doesn’t even _exist_? So she smiles and shrugs and gripes about the dust and the heat and the darkspawn, and doesn’t tell him about how her mother is still a wretch and a drunk even in her fine linens, or that the first and only man she’d willingly let into her bed was dead and rotting with his throat slit by her blade. She doesn’t tell him how by the time Bhelen was crowned all she wanted to do was run and run until there was fresh air and open sky again. She says nothing about the cold dread that filled her bones as Hespith sang or the bile that rose in her throat when she stared a moment too long at the corpse of the broodmother in the dank dark of the Deep Roads.

The first night back, Zevran joins her in her tent. Between Wynne’s disapproving murmurs and Oghren’s lewd jokes, Alistair’s disbelief grates the most. She doesn’t tell him she has far more in common with the former Crow than she does with anyone else in their little band of misfits, or even to mind his own damn business. She chuckles and walks on, pretending it doesn’t get under her skin.

It grows after that, grain after grain in an hourglass, a scream that builds in her throat but she can’t let out. It has to fall apart eventually, and when it does it’s catastrophic.

Suddenly she’s standing victorious with Loghain at her mercy and it’s nothing like she thought. She’s expected a tyrant, a villain like Howe, power-hungry and cruel and vicious and not… _this_ : a desperate man resorting to even more desperate measures, so blinded by fear of shadows he doesn’t see the enemy at his doorstep. She looks at Loghain and she thinks of Jowan who dabbled in forbidden magic but gave her the knowledge to undo the damage he’d done. She thinks of Zathrian, who let revenge consume him until he was as much a monster as the creatures he’d cursed. She thinks of Caridin, begging for the chance to prevent his mistake ever being made again.

And she thinks of herself, a dustrat with bloodied hands and the executioner’s block awaiting her before Duncan stepped in and offered a second chance. When Riordan suggests making the former Teryn a Grey Warden, there’s really only one choice.

As far as Alistair is concerned, it’s the wrong one.

She’s never seen him so angry before, the hurt and betrayal in his face and voice painfully evident and yet she can’t bring herself to back down, not from this. She tries reasoning with him, desperate to make him understand this is about making Loghain fix the damage he’s caused, about making him be of more use than another death at the end of her sword but none of it matters. Her first real friend since she left home is looking at her like she’s a stranger, a monster in disguise, and nothing she says is changing that. He turns his back on her – on the duty he claimed to prize above all else – and submits himself to a role he claimed he never wanted in the first place, a reluctant king at Anora’s side.

Later, he tells her she’s disgraced the Grey Wardens with what she’s done here today and she barely holds back the poison behind her teeth. She’s not the one who turned her back on her oath, she wants to tell him, but even after this, even after all the hurt he’s thrown at her, she cannot will herself to turn her tongue into a blade against him.

In the end, nothing changes. She shoulders her guilt and her fear and her doubt, and she gets on with her job. Loghain is no Alistair, but there’s a frankness about him that’s refreshing, and he’s under no illusions either about his faults or their chances. And if she’s a little harder, a littler sharper, a little less kind – well, no war won with a soft heart, as Loghain remarks at one point.

She survives, and that’s the important part, isn’t it?


End file.
